Clickers vs Zombies

by J. F. Gonzalez

  Rick stepped into the study. The only wall not taken up by bookshelves was the one directly opposite the doorway—a small but comfortable reading chair and end table was positioned by the window.

  The other three walls were lined with bookshelves.

  Floor to ceiling bookshelves containing a collection of horror, dark fantasy, and science fiction he’d been building since he was sixteen years old. One wall held nothing but rare hardcovers—volumes by Bradbury, Bloch, Lovecraft, Wellman, Long, and Derleth from Arkham House; Etchison, Campbell, Barker, Wagner, Nolan, Matheson (father and son), Shirley, and Blumlein from Scream/Press. Martin, McCammon, Garton, Lansdale, Koontz, and Schow from Dark Harvest Press. And that was just material from classic small press imprints from the so-called horror boom of the 1980’s. He also had key volumes from some of the latest small presses, as well as expensive limited signed editions by Barker, King, Grant, Lee, Ketchum, and Laymon in a special case with glass doors. Another wall of bookshelves held nothing but mass-market paperbacks from the 1940’s through the latest pulpy mid-list titles. The walk-in closet held even more treasures—white cardboard boxes stacked row upon row consisting of files of hundreds of comic books, pulps, and science fiction magazines.

  Rick stood in the room, taking in his collection. In another life he could have been a writer of this kind of material. He’d certainly had dreams of it at one point, at a younger age. He’d doodled on a few stories back then, poor imitations of the great stuff he was reading in the leading anthologies of the day. Rather than follow his heart and his muse, he’d done what was expected of him by his parents and society in general—he’d buckled down and concentrated on his job at the company his father had worked at for over twenty-five years himself—insurance giant Free State Insurance.

  He’d left the window in the study open a crack last night to let in the evening breeze. He crossed the room to close it, latching it. He paused, surveying the room again. He’d read every book in this room, some of them twice. Knew every story plot and synopsis. And even though the news story he’d heard had a throb of déjà vu in it, he was absolutely certain it did not resemble any fictionalized story he’d ever read. He took a step toward the paperbacks and ran his finger along the spines, searching among the alphabetized authors last names. He had three of Guy N. Smith’s infamous ‘Crab’ novels—slim novels about giant crabs coming ashore in Wales and chowing down on the human population. Fun escapist reading, but nothing like what the news journalists were reporting.

  Rick sighed, cast another look around the room. He glanced at his watch. Time to go. A few minutes later Rick left for work, hoping he’d have enough down time during his work day to do some research on the news story.

  Venice Beach, California

  Sparky was kicking it along the low brick wall that lined the strand when Doc and Joker showed up. He saw them pull the 1957 Chevrolet Impala in the parking lot behind Stan’s Surf Shop. Sparky grinned. Joker kept that Impala cherry. It was fire-engine red with real chrome rims, white leather interior and fringe along the interior ceiling. The hydraulic system was powered by eight batteries in the trunk. It was a bad ass ride. Joker had gotten it from his old man, Flaco, who was doing twenty to life in San Quentin on a second-degree murder charge. In Flaco’s time he’d cruised the streets blasting the classics—the Platters, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, all that good 1950’s shit. Weird that guys from Flaco’s generation, homies who came up in the late 1970s and early 1980s, had been into music from a past generation. The way Joker told it, his old man went from the crooners to the hardcore West Coast rappers like NWA and Ice T without missing a beat.

  “How’s it going, little dude!” Joker called out. Sparky raised his right hand and waved as his old friends meandered slowly to the strand, weaving their way between the other characters—the rollerskaters, skateboarders, the chicks strolling along in their low-slung jeans, the gangsta wanna-be’s in their baggy shorts, the jack-offs who thought they were tough shit walking around with pit bulls on thick stud-and-chain collars, the hippies scattered here and there doing their hippie thing, playing guitars, harmonica, painting pictures, selling t-shirts, discreetly selling grass and mushrooms. Venice Beach was a colorful place. The most colorful place in the heart of Dogtown.

  Joker held his right hand up for a power shake and Sparky stood up. The two men clasped hands and embraced, slapping each other’s backs. “Long time, homie, long time,” Joker said. “How you been?”

  “I been good,” Sparky said.

  Doc grinned at him from behind mirrored shades. His weathered face was framed by a long goatee that was more gray than the black from when Sparky had known him back in the day. “How’s it going, Doc?” Sparky asked the grizzled veteran of the streets.

  “It’s going,” Doc said, powershake, embrace, back slap. “You look good, homes. What they feed you in Arizona State Penn?”

  “The same slop they feed you in Chino and San Quentin,” Sparky said.

  “I wouldn’t know that, homes,” Doc said. Unlike Joker, he was dressed down. Joker was dressed out to the max—tan khaki slacks that were pressed so tight the creases practically gleamed with their sharpness, white sleeveless t-shirt, red plaid long-sleeved shirt over it like a billowy jacket, black dress shoes. Even Joker’s walk was low rider all the way. Doc, on the other hand, was dressed like he just came off from a construction job site—blue jeans, ratty white t-shirt, blue work shirt unbuttoned, tan workboats. He wore a blue bandana over his head, tied in the back. The only thing that told you he was from the bad streets of Dogtown was the way he carried himself; it was in the way he walked with a slinking approach mixed with a cool attitude and a wary size-you-up appraisal. If you were a rival you recognized that look even with the casual dress. If you were a normal citizen, you simply thought Doc was a blue-collar veteran.

  Sparky cast a casual glance at the action on the beach, noticed the two beat cops two thousand feet down the strand and turned to his friends. He nodded at Joker. “You clean, homes?”

  “Clean as the day I was born, homie!” Joker said, spreading his hands out and grinning.

  “We clean,” Doc said. He was grinning, his gaze centered on Sparky. “Don’t worry about those two cops. This won’t take long.”

  Sparky nodded.

  “Tonight, Gardena, Avalon and One Hundred and Sixty Fifth Street. Eighty Seven is the address.”

  Sparky frowned. “That’s Gardena Trese’s turf.”

  “Yeah, and you been a resident of Arizona state for how long now? Twelve years?”

  “Don’t rub it in,” Sparky said. He cast a quick glance down the strand at the cops. They were talking to a couple of girls in skimpy bikinis.

  “Yeah, but you hear stuff inside,” Doc said. “Or so I heard.”

  “How does a guy like you never wind up serving time?” Sparky asked Doc. “You must be one lucky sonofabitch!”

  Doc grinned. “That’s why I’m the Doctor. I know how to play the system, and I know how to play people. I watch. I observe. I form alliances. And I do this for our people. I do this for you, my man.”

  “Why couldn’t you pull some strings for me when it went down, then? That was some fucked up shit, homes.”

  “I’m not here to relive old days, homie,” Doc said. “I’m just the messenger today. Eighty Seven, at One-Sixty Fifth Street. Gardena. Eight o’clock.”

  “You gonna be there?”

  “Joker’s going with you.” Doc said. “He’s my ambassador.”

  Joker grinned. One of his teeth was silver. It gleamed in the sunlight.

  Sparky turned to Doc, his voice lower. “So, is that shit true then? Did they…you know…did MM really call for this?”

  “That’s affirmative.”

  “And is it true about the clean-up?” Sparky had heard the stories while serving time. Rumor had it that the Mexican Mafia had sent down a directive to all the Latino street gangs in Los Angeles to eliminate the strong-holds the Black gangs had taken in t
he drug trade. In years past, the Blood and the Crips had controlled areas of their turf and had not crossed borders into the territories of the Latino street gangs. Unlike the Latino street gangs, the Black street gangs were more industrious; they sought wider distribution networks and had grown nationwide in the 1990’s. It had caused friction with old time gangsters in other distribution centers in Chicago, along the eastern seaboard, especially with the Italian mob in those areas. While some Latino street gangs had followed suit, most noticeably 18th Street, the Bloods and the Crips had a distinct advantage. They had successfully tapped a market not even the Latino street gangs could capture—they were selling to the average man on the street, the corporate CEOs, the A-list entertainers. The Mexican Mafia saw that as a threat. While in days past, Latino and Black street gangs could pass each other on the street without malice, the situation was different now. The Mexican Mafia’s directive had shaken things up. In the past five years, almost a thousand young Black men had been killed in violent street wars all perpetrated by Mexican Mafia soldiers from various Latino street gangs. The bloodshed had claimed the lives of innocent Black men. For the first time ever in the history of Los Angeles, Black men were dying at the hands of not just their own people from rival Crip and Blood factions or racist cops, but Latino gang members who had never posed a threat even in the glory days of the 70’s and 80’s. Indeed, Sparky remembered hearing stories from his uncles and aunts about parties and picnics in the park, how various Crip factions would attend and kick back with his Venice homies, sharing a brew or a blunt. That sense of camaraderie was gone now.

  “It’s as true as night and day, my man,” Doc said.

  Sparky nodded. He’d only been out of prison since April. In that time, he’d laid low at his uncle Ernie’s place watching soap operas and visiting his PO. He was prohibited from associating with known felons, and while Ernie was a long-time member of Venice 13, he wasn’t a felon; like Doc, Ernie only had minor convictions in the early 1970’s and had never spent a day in Federal custody. That’s where guys like me come in, Sparky thought. The old-timers, the guys with the brains, they get us to do their dirty work for them. And the Mexican Mafia pulls the strings.

  “So whatta ya say, homie?” Joker asked. He grinned good-naturedly. “We can meet up at Lucy’s for some carne asada like old times, then take a ride down to G-town together.”

  Sparky shrugged his shoulders. He cast another glance down the strand. The two cops—dressed in khaki shorts and white shirts, their badges pinned to their shirt breasts, their belts bearing the requisite stuff like handcuffs, firearm, mace and their shoulder-strapped mikes the only thing that differentiated them from all the other freaks on the strand. Like everybody else out here they were only out to hustle, only they got it both ways—they got paid to hustle the riff raff and they got to hustle for some pussy on the side.

  Sparky turned to Joker. “What time shall I meet you?”

  Joker grinned. “Six o’clock.”

  “Six it is.” Sparky got up from the low brick wall.

  “One thing, homes,” Doc said before Sparky could leave. “You and Joker are troop commanders to the Venice boys. You take in everything the MM guys say at the meeting and you follow it to the word. You need support, you come to me.”

  “Si,” Sparky said. Power shakes were traded, more half-assed hugs and back slapping, then the three men parted ways. Joker and Doc headed back to their Impala, Sparky headed north along the strand to where he’d left his ride, a 1973 VW Bug that Ernie let him borrow while he was on probation. And as he got behind the wheel and started the engine, he had the distinct feeling that he was going to play a major part in something very big.

  Malibu, California

  Augustus Livingston knew there was something wrong. He just didn’t know what it was.

  His morning meditation had been undertaken with disruption and much tension. As always, when the weather was picture perfect, he’d trudged down the well-worn private path from his cliff-side Malibu beach home and walked fifty paces to the high tide line where he’d sat on the slightly damp sand to commune with nature. The normal beach activity—the cries of the gulls, the sound of the waves breaking, the occasional excited yelps of children playing on the beach, the sight of early morning surfers bobbing in the ocean in their wetsuits to ride the early morning glassy surf seemed broken somehow. Augustus cast his gaze toward the ocean, a frown on his face.

  Augustus was seventy years old. Standing at a lean five foot eleven and weighing in at a trim one-eighty, most people would be hard pressed to correctly guess his age. Chalk that up to the clean living. Since the early 1970s, Augustus had been living green both on a business matter and a personal one. Unlike the rest of his contemporaries of the sixties, after turning on, tuning in, and dropping out (and dropping a lot of LSD and mescaline in the process), he had turned off living within the mainstream and had dropped back in to society on his own terms. His first step toward that goal had been to open a commercial art and graphic studio where he’d supplied work for all the major advertising agencies and the occasional film studio. While plying his trade there, he’d tuned in even deeper to the science of natural living, meditation, and past life regression. He’d started conducting seminars and workshops. He authored several books on the subjects. And watched his mini self-help empire grow to a ten million dollar a year company.

  Through it all he’d remained with his wife, Marion, for over forty years and fathered four children with her. Their children had produced grandchildren. His oldest son ran his company—La Raza del Sol, Spanish for the House of the Sun—with the assistance of eight full-time staff members. Augustus was officially retired, but he was still active in many areas of the business. He still conducted seminars, still guided people into deep meditation states to commune with their past selves, still recorded self-help CD’s and Podcasts that were broadcasts to three million people around the world. He loved that part of the job. The business end he was glad to hand over to somebody else.

  The crying of the gulls caused him to glance out over the ocean. There was a large flock of seagulls heading inland. Largest Augustus had ever seen. Maybe there was balance after all. He sat back, palms on the sand, and watched them.

  Maybe he was just feeling some stress because of what was happening in his daughter’s life. Susan had married late in life, and was currently going through a painful divorce with her husband, Carlos. Susan had insinuated infidelity on her husband’s part. In observing his daughter’s struggle, he had to wonder if much of it had to do with her embracing of those things which society still deemed as more important above all else—material status, social status, socially acceptable career. Susan had rebelled as a teenager by embracing right-wing conservatism. Never one to push his political beliefs on anyone, Augustus and Marion had allowed their children to explore their own paths. And while older son Andy and their youngest children George and Heather had bounced around to various social, political, and religious causes from a wide range of faiths and spectrums, they’d found their niche’s and neither was completely in line with their parents. While Andy ran La Raza del Sol and could be considered the more liberal of his children, he was a registered Liberatarian (Augustus had not voted in a national election since 1968, after being lied to by both the Democrats and Republicans who’d foisted Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon on the nation to disastrous results that had only grown worse in recent years). Heather leaned conservative on fiscal issues, George was a die-hard liberal who made Augustus and Marion seem like communists by comparison. It was probably only natural that Susan had fled in the opposite direction.

  Augustus sighed. He couldn’t find fault with any of the life paths his children had chosen. It was who they were. It was where their destinies lied. He was only sorry that Susan had not listened to her heart and backed out of her marriage to Carlos. She’d confided to Marion before the wedding that she had doubts about the relationship. They’d been introduced by mutual friends at their com
pany. They shared the same political and spiritual beliefs. They started attending the same church. It was only natural for them to get married, right? After all, they loved each other. There was a physical attraction and they had so much in common!

  Sighing again, Augustus closed his eyes, and took several deep breaths. It was time to clear his mind of can’t. Time to expel negative thoughts, and focus only on the positive. He turned his attention inward, his mental energy channeling into one perfect pitch melody of meditation and he was almost in the zone when the cries of the gulls grew louder, knocking him out of his reverie.

  He opened his eyes slightly, intending to try to get back into his morning meditation, but something made him sit up and take notice.

  Off on the horizon, as far as he could see, there was a solid mass of birds heading inland. The group was much larger than the previous flock he’d witnessed. He didn’t need a telescope or binoculars to know that that long black smudge that crossed the horizon for…well, it seemed to be all over the place really, but it was broken up here and there…that black smudge could only be one thing.

  A gigantic flock of birds. Heading inland.

  Augustus felt a pang of fear in his belly. He slowly got to his feet, looking out at the ocean. A slight breeze rippled his long, billowy cotton shirt, his long shorts, his shoulder-length graying hair. Something about all those birds flying en masse inland didn’t sit right with him. It felt wrong. Felt…unnatural.

  Augustus glanced up the beach. It was relatively empty this morning save for a couple of pre-teen kids chasing each other around. A group of surfers rode waves or waited for the next set. On the other end of the beach heading south was more of the same. This stretch of beach was marked private, about a mile stretch, for the residents who lived along the rocky outcrops that lined the shore. Augustus’s home was fifty yards behind him. Marion was probably on the back deck facing the ocean, enjoying a cup of coffee while reading the morning paper.